In the area of fast delivery services, the overnight letter, the express mailer, and next day delivery packages have become common means to transport information and/or material between two businesses or other entities. Several well-known companies in the fast delivery business include Federal Express, Emery and Purolator, Airborne, DHL, and UPS. Each of the letters or packages being shipped must carry identification or information relative to the sender of the package, the transporter of the package, and the recipient of the package. A common business form used in the transport of packages is the airbill which is inserted into a pouch formed of at least one sheet of transparent material on one side of the package so as to allow viewing of the airbill or like document. The airbill may also include a machine readable bar code for record keeping and a human readable number in Arabic and/or OCR numerals to enable the package to be tracked.
Representative documentation in the field of business forms used in fast delivery services includes U.S. Pat. No. 3,981,435, issued to E. L. Johnsen on Sept. 21, 1976, which discloses a continuous business form adapted for subsequent processing into combination mailing envelopes and return envelopes having a common back ply panel.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,211,434, issued to J. Reese on July 8, 1980, discloses a combination container and control form for shipping, identifying and reordering merchandise.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,343,492, issued to G. W. Fitzgibbons on Aug. 10, 1982 discloses a multiple ply adhesive business form.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,346,916, issued to O. A. Shelton on Aug. 31, 1982, discloses a multiple ply business form and manifold assembly.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,535,930, issued to J. O. Ward on Aug. 20, 1985, discloses an overnight letter envelope having a pouch for an airbill.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,570,416, issued to D. B. Shoenfeld on Feb. 18, 1986, discloses an overnight package having a pouch for a letter or an envelope.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,598,935, issued to G. E. Stewart on July 8, 1986, discloses a business form with packing label wherein one of the pages of the form is adapted to be used to form a mailing pouch on a shipping container.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,614,361, issued to R. S. Foster on Sept. 30, 1986, discloses a multiple part shipping label wherein the lower layer has adhesive on its surface for attachment to a shipping document.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,645,123, issued to R. E. Ashby on Feb. 24, 1987, discloses a continuous, filled envelope assembly with non-marginal spaced feed holes.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,627,994, issued to B. J. Welsch on Dec. 9, 1986, discloses a label bearing continuous business form having a ply coated with adhesive and a release liner over the adhesive.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,747,619, issued to F. D. Sager on May 31, 1988, discloses a pressure-sensitive label.